Christophe Paulin de la Poix de Freminville (1747-1848)
Dichtomaria Indo Chine
Watercolor on paper
Paper size: 6 x 4 1/2 in.

Like his contemporary John James Audubon, the Chevalier Freminville had an adventuresome and productive life. Freminville was the son of a naval architect.  He chose a naval career after hearing a lecture on Captain Cook’s voyages. At the age of 15, Freminville joined the navy and traveled to Haiti under General LeClerc. While there, he discovered the great ray, native to the bay of Port-au-Prince, which came to bear his name.

By the time he retired in the 1830’s, Freminville had spent most of his life at sea, traveling from Iceland and Russia to Central and South America to West Africa and the Antilles, and drawing specimens of exotic species. He enjoyed much fame in his own day as an antiquary and writer of travel accounts, but he died having produced only one book on natural history subjects, Considerations Generales sur les Moeurs et les Habitudes des Serpens (1842). The drawings that Freminville  left behind were intended for a half-dozen other related works on butterflies, fish, mollusks, snakes, and other reptiles, but these books remained unrealized.

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